updated 02:15 pm EDT, Fri June 5, 2009

BenQ Android in 2010

BenQ late Thursday confirmed that it was developing its first devices to use Google's Android as an operating system. Both a smartphone and a netbook are due to use the mobile OS and should be available sometime next year. What features they would have isn't definitive at this stage, though Android is designed around touchscreen interfaces for phones and requires relatively little hardware to run smoothly either on phones or on full computers.

The company has been actively involved in netbooks, recently launching the Joybook Lite Eco U121, but has been all but drummed out of the phone market due to a combination of a destructive but temporary partnership with Siemens as well as a lack of significant efforts in smartphones.

BenQ won't be the first to offer Android but is the first believed to be using that OS alone. Acer will ship its equivalent much earlier, this summer, but will dual-boot Android and Windows as it's worried that customers aren't ready for the different interface.